


Fledgling Avengers

by Zaniida



Series: Silly Shenanigans [3]
Category: Person of Interest (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avengers Fusion, April Fools, Clashing personalities, Gen, I love this holiday, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, suicide attempt (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 12:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18315584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaniida/pseuds/Zaniida
Summary: A powerful alien menace has been brainwashing people en route to seizing power over the Earth.  While Control has finally managed to capture the sneering lady in green, Cole's still under the alien's influence.  Meanwhile, Dr. Finch is trying to suppress the Reese side of his nature, and Control has had quite enough of Earth's greatest heroes (plus the alien's rather impudent brother) squabbling over their next move.





	Fledgling Avengers

**Author's Note:**

> _"I won't touch Cole," Root said softly, staring Shaw right in the eyes, amusement playing around her lips. "Not until I make him kill you… slowly. Intimately. In every way he knows you fear. And then he'll wake just long enough to see his good work… and, when he screams, I'll split his skull."_   
>  _"You're a monster," Shaw whispered._   
>  _"No," Root countered, shaking her head. "You brought the monster."_   
>  _Abruptly, Shaw straightened up, the feigned emotion leaving her face. "Ah: Dr. Finch. So that's your play."_   
>  _Root blinked at her. "What?"_   
>  _Shaw tapped her earpiece. "Root means to unleash Reese. Keep Finch in the lab; I'm on my way. Send Ingram in as well." She shot Root a look over her shoulder. "Thanks for the cooperation."_

The helicarrier meeting room was abuzz with energy, the clashing personalities and motivations driven to greater sparks by the magic scepter that no one seemed to notice was glowing ever more strongly….

“My people want nothing but peace with your planet,” Nathan asserted, confusion about the eyebrows of his otherwise broadly open face.

Control raised her chin and stared him down with her one good eye. “But you’re not the only people out there, are you? And you’re not the only threat. The world’s filling up with people who can’t be matched, they can’t be controlled.”

“Like you controlled the cube?” Joss rejoined.

“Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Root to it, along with her allies,” Nathan pointed out. “It is the signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war.”

Joss turned on him, frowning. “A higher form?”

“You forced our hand,” Control said, ceding no ground. “We had to come up with something.”

“Nuclear deterrent.” With a sneering half-shrug, Zoe stared down Control. “’Cause that always calms everything right down.”

Control eyed her. “Remind me again how you made your fortune, Morgan?”

Nathan shook his head. “You speak of control, yet you court chaos,” he said, half exasperated, half amused.

Shoulders hunched with discomfort, Harold looked around. “This is never going to work. We’re too individual, too secretive. Nobody here trusts anyone else, and why should we? We’re… we’re a ticking time bomb.”

Leveling her gaze at Harold, Control tried again to assert authority: “Dr. Finch, you need to calm down and let this go.”

“Why should he?” Zoe countered. “He’s got the right to feel threatened by all this.”

“You know damn well why!” Joss ground out. “The last thing we need is another Reese incident—”

Zoe smirked at her. “I don’t know, I wouldn’t mind seeing a little more from the suited menace.”

“What, because you’re nigh invincible in that flying tank? Without your tech, what are you, anyway?”

Calmly, Zoe ticked them off on her fingers: “Negotiator, billionaire, secret-keeper, philanthropist.”

“I know women with none of that worth _ten_ of you,” Joss challenged. “The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You’re not much better than Root in there, always looking for an angle. So you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero.”

“A hero?” Zoe scoffed. “Like you? You’re a _lab rat_ , Carter. Everything special about you came out of a bottle!”

“Tech up,” Joss rejoined. “Let’s go a few rounds.”

Nathan’s laughter cut through the room. “You people are so petty,” he chuckled. “What’s the point of all this squabbling?”

“Agent Shaw,” Control said, “would you escort Dr. Finch back to his—”

“Where?” Harold asked despairingly. “Am I to share a room with Root now?”

Control sighed. “The cell was merely a contingency—”

“I wish it were that easy!” Harold cried out. “I once got low enough to put a bullet in my mouth, and the other guy used it to kill a mugger! Your contingency protocols can’t do me worse harm than Reese has done to me.” He drew himself up painfully. “That was my low point, but I’ve moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk! You’ve seen him, Agent Shaw. You know what Reese is capable of. You know why—”

He cut himself short when he realized that Shaw and Control both had their hands on their guns.

“Dr. Finch,” Joss said softly. “Put down the scepter.”

He hadn’t even realized that he’d picked it up.

**Author's Note:**

> **Chapter Preview:**   
>  _Shaw’s heart ached a little as she watched her partner slowly shake off Root’s mind control._   
>  _“You’re going to be all right, Cole,” she said, trying to be as reassuring as she could, knowing that she was far from skilled in bedside manner._   
>  _Michael struggled against the straps that held him to the chair, but not with any real strength. “You know that?” he choked out. “Is that what you know?”_   
>  _“Stay calm.”_   
>  _“Shaw… have you ever had someone take your brain and play? Pull you out and send something else in? Do you know what it’s like to be unmade?”_   
>  _Shaw swallowed, recalling the procedures that had stripped her of emotions in the first place. “You know that I do.”_   
>  _“Why am I back?” he asked, a little wild about the eyes. “How did you get her out?”_   
>  _Shaw shrugged. “I hit you really hard on the head.”_   
>  _For a moment, Michael stared at her, and then he gave a half-despairing chuckle. “Of course you did. Thank you.”_
> 
> * * *
> 
> **News!**  
>  I've gotten far too hooked on the Marvel Cinematic Universe to get back to writing _Person of Interest_ fics the regular way. So I had to choose between outright abandoning all the fics you guys have been waiting on, or melding them with my current interests so I can keep going. The latter seems more reasonable, so I hope you can still enjoy what I come up with. Expect a lot of cameos from Marvel characters, and possibly some character swaps where it seems plausible.
> 
> Like, I’ve never really liked Cal Beecher, right? So now Carter is dating Nick Fury. Little changes like that. Ought to spice things up a bit.
> 
> So here are some possibilities to look forward to in the months to come:
> 
>  **Buying Time:** The hitman turns out to be a minor supervillain (I haven’t yet decided on which one), and saving Finch requires Reese to reveal his mutant powers.
> 
>  **Bargains:** I’ve been planning on a chapter where Elias asks Harold to commit some crime for him, and now I’m thinking he’ll have Harold break Bucky out of prison. Elias will teach Harold the words to activate Bucky’s brainwashing, but not tell him exactly what’s going on, just to bring Bucky to him.
> 
>  **The Toll:** Staying away from Finch so unhinges Reese that he winds up splitting in two, the positive side that wants to keep Finch safe and the negative side that is greedy for that contact even knowing it’s entirely unwanted. It takes Finch a while to figure out that Reese has gone all Jekyll-and-Hyde.
> 
>  **Manipulations:** Turns out the Matrix installment isn’t actually on Earth; they’ve all been moved to Sakaar (from _Thor: Ragnarok_ ), and this is part of the way that they take powerless humans and reprogram them into obedient slaves. John’s skilled enough that they’re gonna put him in the arena after granting him superpowers (if you have any ideas for his powerset, list ‘em in the comments!). My favorite part is probably going to be the times they get zapped with the obedience discs!
> 
>  **Five Fans:** The weird, attention-hungry kidnapper dude has been rewritten as Loki in disguise. And he chose these five women for their latent superpowers, which come out during their attempted escape: Denise can disappear, Lexi can phase through walls, Lisa has a sort of telepathic sense that works through cell phones, Mula can stretch her body and squeeze into tight places, and elbows can turn into a variety of cats.
> 
>  **Mirror:** Bringing John to his senses requires something a little more than time, rest, and friendship, and so Harold seeks out the help of his old college roommate, Charles Xavier.
> 
> … _hope you had a great April First!_


End file.
